Overview

Freshwater Connectivity and Canadian Wildlife Federation

CWF has expanded and developed freshwater connectivity initiatives:

  1. Chinook salmon migration and fish passage effectiveness research (Upper Yukon River)
  2. American eel research and advocacy for hydropower facility mitigation plans
  3. Watershed Connectivity Remediation Planning in B.C.
  4. Canadian Aquatic Barriers Database and tools
  5. National connectivity and fish passage program

 

Presentation Overview:

  1. Bulkley River Watershed Connectivity Remediation Plan (WCRP) outcomes
  2. WCRP framework and guide
  3. Canadian Aquatic Barriers Database (CABD)

WCRP

B.C. Fish Passage Restoration Initiative (BCFPRI)

BCFPRI conceived as a collaborative partnership to:

  • Remediate priority barriers
  • Establish stronger partnerships for fish passage
  • Develop prioritization tools
  • Assess the effectiveness of fish passage remediation

Watershed Connectivity Remediation Planning

Provincial-scale prioritization process to select four target watersheds:

  1. Bulkley River Watershed
  2. Elk River Watershed
  3. Horsefly River Watershed
  4. Lower Nicola River Watershed

 

Goals:

  1. Develop watershed-scale plans to improve freshwater connectivity for target species (adapted from Conservation Standards)
    • Identify partners and roles
    • Focus geographic scope of the work
    • Quantify the current connectivity status of the watershed
    • Set goals for gains in connectivity
    • Prioritize barriers and associated costs required to meet goals
    • Action plan with assigned responsibilities
  2. Develop WCRP Guide to support plan development in other watersheds
    • Partner engagement
    • Planning framework
    • Data and spatial analyses

Bulkley River Watershed

Bulkley WCRP Outcomes

Bulkley River

 

Supporting Existing Work

Existing fish passage work:

  • BC Fish Passage Technical Working Group
  • Skeena Fisheries Commission
  • Office of the Wet’suwet’en
  • Wet’suwet’en First Nation
  • SERNbc

 

Target Species

Anadromous salmonids:

  • Chinook Salmon
  • Coho Salmon
  • Sockeye Salmon
  • Steelhead Trout

 

Project Scope

Thematic Scope: Freshwater connectivity

  • Direct remediation and prevention of localized, physical barriers to dispersal
  • Longitudinal (upstream/downstream connectivity)

 

Geographic Scope: Bulkey River Watershed

  • Refine to “potentially accessible” stream segments
    • Waterfalls (>5 m height)
    • Gradient threshold (20%)
    • ‘Exclusionary areas’
  • “Currently accessible” stream segments
    • Modelled stream-crossings (road, rail, and trail)
    • Assessed stream-crossings
    • Dams

 

Key Ecological Attributes and Connectivity Status Indicators

Based on Intrinsic Potential habitat models

 

Barrier Types

Barrier types considered:

  • Dams
  • Road-stream crossings
  • Rail-stream crossings
  • Trail-stream crossings
  • Lateral barriers
  • Natural barriers

 

Goal setting and Action Planning

 

 

Barrier Prioritization

Current Connectivity Status

Habitat Type Accessible (km) Total (km) Current Status Goal Gain Required(km)
Spawning habitat 1042.53 1245.30 0.84 0.91 90.70
Rearing habitat 1322.31 2023.59 0.65 0.80 296.56

 

Prioritized Barrier List

 

Estimated overall costs

Watershed Connectivity Remediation Planning Framework

Purpose of the Guide

  • Not intended to provide a step-by-step “how-to” guide
  • Provide context, best practices, and considerations for planning to improve freshwater connectivity
  • Suite of customizeable decision support tools to strategically allocate resources

Four key components:

  1. Scoping Decisions
  2. Partner engagement
  3. Planning framework
  4. Spatial analyses and modelling

 

Key Scoping Decisions

1. Defining “watershed” in watershed-scale

  • Need to explicitly specify watershed boundaries
  • Ontario has multi-scale classification system
  • NHN “work units” = largest suggested scale

 

2. Target Species

  • Select species, guilds or life histories to lay foundation for connectivity decisions

 

3. Connectivity Dimensions and Barrier Types

Connectivity Dimensions

Recommendation: to prevent “scope creep” WCRPs should focus on localized, physical barriers to connectivity

  • Typically longitudinal or lateral (vertical and temporal consideration in conjunction)

 

Barrier types

 

Partner Engagement

  • Engagement with local Indigenous groups, conservation organizations, and governments to establish local priorities and threats
  • Really important, but PC has established engagement processes

 

Planning Framework and Supporting Spatial Analyses

  • Planning framework adapted from the international Conservation Standards

 

Data types to inform analyses

Five fundamental inputs (spatial data, reports, local and Indigenous Knowledge)

  1. Hydrographic network
  2. Species distribution
  3. Species habitat (types/quality)
  4. Barriers
  5. “Exclusion” areas

 

Defining “potentially accessible” stream segments

“Potentially accessible” stream segments:

  • Permanent natural barriers
  • Physiological barriers
  • Exclusion areas
E.g., Chinook Salmon

 

Map and model habitat, barriers, and connectivity status

  1. Options to define habitat types:
  • Explicit habitat mapping
  • Habitat modelling
  • Linear stream kms or lateral areas
  1. Simple habitat model - Intrinsic potential modelling, based on known or derived thresholds:
  • Gradient
  • Flow or channel width
  • Channel confinement
  1. Overlay mapped and modelled barriers to define “connectivity status” using indicators
  • This is a decision-support tool to establish a baseline and track progress over time
  • Can define the effect each barrier is having on connectivity
  • Dendritic Connectivity Index (DCI; Cote et al. 2009)
    • Account for number and distribution of barriers
    • Direct comparison between different life histories

  1. Establish current “connectivity status”

 

Identify and Rate Barriers

  • The goal is to explore the barrier types that occur and identify those that are most affecting connectivity for target species
  • Decision-support tool to focus action planning

 

Conduct a Situation Analysis

 

 

Set Goals to Improve Connectivity Status

  • SMART goals to quantify the desired future connectivity status
  • Important to be realistic and recognize diminishing returns

 

Evaluate Actions and Strategies

  • Identify actions to pursue for implementation

 

Barrier Prioritization and Remediation Implementation

Hybrid prioritization approach

  • For each ‘Barrier’ or ‘Potential Barrier’ in the watershed:
  1. Calculate the number of downstream barriers
  2. Rank by the amount of habitat being blocked (but below next upstream barriers)
  3. Evaluate ‘sets’ of barriers together to maximize habitat gains

     

 

 

How to manage implementation of desktop results

 

Other plan components

  1. Method of work
  2. Project purpose
  3. Vision statement
  4. Theories of Change and Objectives
  5. Progress Tracking and Implementation Plans

CABD

All of Canada’s barriers in one place

Standardized database for ‘large’ and ‘small’ barriers

  • Dams
  • Weirs
  • Stream crossings
  • Natural barriers (e.g., waterfalls)
  • Others to come

Project Components

  • Ever expanding engaged network
  • Standardized barrier data by type
  • Hydro network to support analysis
  • Web mapping interface

Pilot Launch

  • Launching dams and waterfalls in eight pilot regions:
    • Bulkley-Morice Rivers, British Columbia
    • Berland-Wildhay Rivers, Alberta
    • Grand-Credit Rivers, Ontario
    • Upper Ottawa River (Kipawa), Ontario/Quebec
    • Richelieu River, Quebec
    • Nashwaak-Central Saint John Rivers, New Brunswick
    • Annapolis River, Nova Scotia
    • Lower Humber River, Newfoundland and Labrador

Future Work

  • Continue to compile existing data
  • Mechanisms to fill data gaps
  • Barrier assessment protocols
  • Citizen-science mobile application

We’re always looking for opportunities to collaborate and engage!!